COMMENT I am told that Sarawak Report had somehow gotten hold of the top secret auditor-general’s report on 1MDB. And they say the auditor-general’s report is damning. There were so many wrong things, even criminal things done by 1MDB people and the chairperson of the board of advisers, which warrant criminal charges being initiated against the chairperson and the staff of 1MDB.

But as we all know the attorney-general declared that the auditor-general’s report did not show that Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak had done anything wrong or criminal. The AG dismissed the other AG’s report but he then invoked the Official Secrets Act to prevent members of the public from accessing the contents.

Obviously the two AGs, the staff of the auditor-general’s and the attorney-general’s offices and the Public Accounts Committee know the contents of the auditor-general’s report. But they are not talking. Their lips are sealed.

Then the finance minister II resigned from all his posts. He has not explained why he took that drastic action. He is going to Jordan to study religion. Seems that his lips are also sealed. He is dumb now.

Looking at the people involved in the setting up and the management of 1MDB, one must conclude that they were chosen because they were dumb. And there must be a lot of these dumb people around. Some quickly resigned, others took a longer time. Some must have been removed or transferred or retired. But the common disability they all suffer from is their inability to talk. They may also be deaf but they are certainly dumb.

There is I believe a law about covering up criminal acts. Even dumb people are not exempted from this law. They may be dumb but they are not so stupid that they cannot distinguish between right and wrong. They can read and they can understand.

A court of law may not take kindly to their plea of being dumb. They may claim they have been coerced into being dumb. One person may be. Even two or three. But a whole army of people cannot possibly be coerced into dumbness. Their pleas would be rejected by the courts.

Then there is a matter of conscience. But there are those who gleefully embellish what they know by telling lies. They cannot be so illiterate as to be unable to read. The press, the alternative media and the specialist investigators like the WSJ and Sarawak Report cannot possibly be fabricating all the massive cheatings the 1MDB is involved in. Until the original report is made public, claims by the stooges that they were all lies cannot be believed.

Today you may act dumb. But the time will come when the pretext is no longer excusable. Even if you turn religious, the cover-up will not hold.

A third group is made up of people who had been fed with dedak (animal feed). And the fourth is made up of the mindless supporters. This group believe that a president who is also a party leader is entitled to do anything he likes, including stealing government money no matter how much.

A million or a billion does not matter. It’s only about changing “m” to “b” and adding three more zeroes - i.e. adding nothing. For these people, “theirs not to reason why, theirs but to do and die”. “My president may he always be in the right, but my president right or wrong”. That is their mentality.

Between all these dumb people the country is going to the dogs. But who cares!!

The day of reckoning will surely come. It will come before the Muslims among them meet their Maker. Mouths will open and words will pour out. Religions will not absolve you. Performing the haj, especially with stolen money, will not absolve your sins. You will get your just deserts.

DR MAHATHIR MOHAMAD is a former prime minister of Malaysia. This article first appeared on his blog, chedet.cc.